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Monthly Archives: February 2012

After the release of the Windows 8 Consumer review, I wanted to know how it’s working on my Samsung Slate 7. I wanted to have both, Windows 7 and Windows 8 on my slate so that I can change when it’s necessary. There are different possibilities to achieve this. Because my S7S only came with a 64 GB SSD drive, I decided to install Windows 8 on a VHD. The advantages are that I only have to create a VHD file on the Windows 7 C:\ drive and therefore don’t have to repartition my hard disk. And with a VHD file I can easily transfer it to another(it’s just a file), but although it’s a file I have a functioning Windows 8 that is running directly on the hardware.

I have followed the following steps to install Windows 8:

Make sure you have the latest BIOS version installed. You can download the latest firmware from Samsung.

Download the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool. It will allow you to create a bootable USB stick (or dvd, but who cares about DVD ;-)). Start it and format a USB stick according to the screen shots:

Create a VHD disk either via Disk Management or via command line. I created a dynamic VHD because I don’t have so much free disk space left:
Command line:

DISKPART

CREATE VDISK FILE=”C:\VHD\Win8.vhd” TYPE=Expandable MAXIMUM=25000

SELECT VDISK FILE=”C:\VHD\Win8.vhd”

ATTACH VDISK

EXIT

Everything is ready to install Windows 8. Let’s do it! Boot from the USB stick.Start the slate and press once the Home Button to show you the boot menu. If you press it more than once, it will automatically continue and not show you the boot menu. Choose to boot from your USB stick that you have plugged in (with Win 8 on it).

When it’s asking for language settings, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. Attach the created VHD as follow:

DISKPART

SELECT VDISK FILE=”D:\VHD\Win8.vhd”

ATTACH VDISK

EXIT

Continue the Windows setup and choose the customized installation so that you can choose on which disk you would like to install Windows 8 (I will add more information and screen shots later when I have some time).

After the installation is done, run Windows Updates. For me it installed less than 10 updates.

Run the Easy Software Manager and install the required drivers. That’s basically it. Please note that it takes several minutes to start the tool the first time. It shows as not responding, but just keep it running, it will show you the missing drivers after a while.

I will extend my post as soon as I have some more time. Enjoy Windows 8 on your slate!

I bought the new Samsung Series 7 slate PC on my birthday. It’s an excellent product! My intention is to replace my notebook and iPad with this slate. I wanted to have a “Tablet PC” that is running with a Windows OS and not with iOS. The problem I came across with the iPad was that I couldn’t use the applications I was used to. I was very much dependent on the available apps. On the other side, on my laptop I can use all needed apps. But I’m not that mobile as I am with a tablet PC. Therefore the slate is the perfect mix between a laptop and a tablet/iPad.
What I especially like is using OneNote 2010 on the slate. I started to write my notes digitally and not anymore on paper. The Ink to Text function works like a charm! I will add more information to my blog as soon I can find some time.

Positive:

Boot time is very short!

Good performance in general

Writing with the pen is great, the slate detects the pen even before it’s touching the screen

In general I like the design of the hardware and their quality

Battery can be used for 5-7 hours (depends on what is running)

Negative:

After a while, the handwriting recognition for German didn’t work anymore (only English). After I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate and installed the German language pack, it worked again. But anyway, something is strange because in the beginning this worked, and I believe after I have installed som Microsoft patches, it stopped working. I would have understood the problem if it existed from the beginning, but that wasn’t the case.

I came across the issue that the download of the “Office 2010 language pack” packages didn’t work. It was downloading the package into the local client cache, but then stopped at one point. It was always a different time it was stuck. After checking the SCCM log files, I couldn’t find any indications. What finally solved my issue was the IIS log file:

As you can see in red, there was a problem downloading the .mdb file because the status code 404.7 means File extension denied. I was having in mind that there is a Request Filtering option in IIS that prevents the access of files with a specific extension. By default it doesn’t allow the access of .mdb files. So I have removed this rule and afterwards the client was able to download .mdb files via HTTP.

The slightly different status code 404.8 indicates Hidden namespace. That’s as well a filtering option from IIS that needs to be changed (see screen shot). Under Hidden Segments I have removed Bin because this was a folder in the path the the above listed .htm file.

After the listed changes I was able to download the full package locally to the client.